normal service

Back home but very busy
Normal(?) service will be resumed as soon as possible.

This aquilegia was looking rather lovely just before we went away

blog break

Going travelling.



Back in a couple of weeks.

theme thursday - white

white as snow


alps, italy


whitewash
white house
whiter than white
pearly whites
white as a sheet
the whites of his eyes
egg white
whiteout
white sands

About 15 miles southwest of Alamogordo in New Mexico, in the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert is the Tularosa Basin. Here gypsum is washed off the mountains by the rain or brought by the wind. It is water-soluble and would normally be washed out to sea. Here, however, it stays in the basin as the water either evaporates or goes into the ground.

275 square miles of shifting, shining, white dunes.



Unlike quartz-based sand, the gypsum does not easily convert the sun's energy into heat and so the dunes are cool enough to walk on in bare feet, even when the summer sun is blazing overhead.



We visited here on our road trip last year.
This is an extract from the journal I kept: ... we saw a glint of white in the distance, a flash of silver on the horizon. White Sands ... we drove among the dunes. White. Dazzling white. So bright that the photos I took were a whiteout, until I remembered the 'snow' setting on the camera ... awesome ... magnificent ...



Grasses and other plants have adapted to life here.



and humans can enjoy the solitude ...

wordless wednesday

new york new york

I was going to take the day off from blogging today, but I just couldn't resist. Seems this has become a little addictive.
Either that or I have way too much time on my hands!

Younger offspring is apparently having a fabulous time in New York. (I know this, not because I've heard from her, but because older offspring told me she's been posting on Facebook, saying she doesn't want to leave! Room for rent, anybody??)

A quick trawl through the archives brings up a few more photos of the city that never sleeps.
So, for those who are planning a trip there, for those who have been and want to go back, for those who live there and for my lucky daughter and her best friend ...


brooklyn library


graffiti


tree at moma


downtown

look up - in new york 4

31 posts for 31 days in May!
Great fun and it's been wonderful going back through the photos I've taken in the past 3 years since I got my 1st digital camera.
As I post this, I imagine my daughter and her friend are waking too early to the sound of street noise, pigeons cooing on the windowsill and aircon whirring into life.

Two years ago lettuce and I took a trip to New York City and had the most amazing time. It's been lovely going back through the photos and picking out ones that fit the theme of 'looking up.' Not difficult - the tall buildings naturally draw the eye upwards.


just had to put in a photo of the empire state building


restoration work near union square


window in a music school


cornelia street

look up - in new york 3

Today younger daughter and her best friend are winging their way across the Atlantic to the Big Apple.
They'll be food-tasting in Greenwich Village, having brunch in Penelope,
queuing for the elevators here, and checking out the beach here.
I believe they plan on doing a little shopping too!


the slaughtered lamb